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GreaterIBMers, are you a technical expert or educator who actively blogs, speaks at conferences or events, or authors books or magazine articles? Or do you know someone who does? If so, we invite you to learn more about the IBM Champion program.

Nominations are open through October 15, 2013 – we’d love to see Greater IBMers nominated for this program!

5 Ways To Become An IBM Champion

An IBM Champion is an IT professional, business leader, developer, or educator who makes exceptional contributions to the technical community and influences and mentors others to help them make best use of IBM software, solutions, and services. The IBM Champion program recognizes these innovative thought leaders and rewards these contributors by amplifying their voices and increasing their spheres of influence. An IBM Champion is not an IBM employee. IBM Champions can live in any country.

5 – Present feedback, both negative and positive, in a constructive and professional manner

Provides feedback in appropriate forums such as a design partner programs, or private discussions with target IBM contact who can affect or implement changes

Reaches out to appropriate contacts within IBM to share criticism or suggestions using clear concise, professional language

Any challenges, issues or problems you wish to resolve with IBM should be discussed with the appropriate IBM personnel in a private venue. Sharing frustrations in a public or social venue on issues that may reflect negatively on IBM, business partners and/or negatively impact revenue streams is not appropriate.

Nominations will be open until October 15th. The announcement of the new set of champions (including renewals) is currently planned for late November or early December.
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In fact, in 2011, fully 99.6% of all IT equipment returned to IBM at end of product lifecycle was either reused, remanufactured or recycled.

In fact, IBM Global Asset Recovery Services was the first company to open a re-manufacturing center and offer used IT equipment in China, addressing the issue of increased e-waste in developing countries.

Some stunning statistics

As a leader in product recovery and reuse, IBM’s remanufacturing operations processed nearly 750,000 units of IT equipment in 2012 alone. Of these approximately 250,000 were laptops – and if they were placed on top of the other, the stack would extend about 4 miles, or 7 kilometers into the sky.

In that same year, GARS remanufacturing and refurbishment operations processed approximately 741,000 units (or 14,250 units per week), 88.3% of which were prepared for reuse and resale.

Of the approximately 42.1 million pounds of product scrap and waste processed at the demanufacturing and scrap centers, 89% was recycled and only .58% was incinerated or sent to a landfill.

An exasperated President Harry Truman once quipped: “Give me a one-handed economist. All my economists say, ‘On the one hand, on the other!’”

Like Truman’s economists, too many in the working world hedge their statements with weak words, burying important content in the language of uncertainty. It not only clouds your message, but it also undercuts your strength, whether or not you’re leading a team: communicating clearly communicates strength.

If you’ve fallen into the bad habit of weak words, there’s good news: it’s easy to change. In this piece from Ragan’s PR Daily, learn to stop the uncertainty you might be generating: go from weak to strong bydoing only this.

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Are you a strong speaker? What tips would you share with your fellow Greater IBMers?

IBM’s legendary President Thomas J. Watson, Sr., was a leader of unbridled optimism. “This business of ours has a future,” he noted in 1926, just 12 years after he joined IBM. “It has a past that we are all proud of, but it has a future that will extend beyond my lifetime and beyond your lifetime.”

Much of that optimism was based on his faith in the knowledge, abilities, and character of IBM employees. “Very few persons throughout the country have seen our factory, our School, our Laboratory, or our World Headquarters Building, and the only way they have to judge the character of IBM is by the character of those who represent us.” But he recognized that IBMers were not born – they were made. To that end, he believed that one of his chief responsibilities as IBM’s leader was to unleash the collective potential of his workforce. One of the ways he did that was by placing great emphasis on employee development.

Watson was fond of saying, “There is no saturation point in education,” and he backed those words by building an educational infrastructure that was second to none. IBM’s tradition of investing in employee development dates to 1916 with the creation of the IBM Education Program. Over the next two decades the program would expand to include management education, volunteer study clubs, training for the disabled, and the construction of an IBM Schoolhouse in Endicott, New York in 1933. So deeply ingrained in IBM culture was the notion of personal development, that starting in the 1920s, IBMers began forming after-hour study clubs to increase their knowledge of their professions and the company’s business.

Watson’s emphasis on employee education was not the benevolence of a paternalistic leader – he saw clear business value in this investment in his workforce. “When a man stops studying, stops acquiring knowledge about the business or profession in which he is engaged, he doesn’t stand still,” Watson said. “He starts going backwards.” And backsliding was something every IBMer had to avoid … even Watson himself. “I found out years ago that because I gave so much of my time to my own business I was getting into a rut. So I decided to get out and see what other people were doing, to broaden my mind on business in general and see what I could bring back and apply to my own business.”

IBMers took Watson’s edicts to heart. Between 1938 and 1952, 40% of Endicott employees were enrolled in classes, covering 33 subjects. By 1954, IBM Education worldwide was running more than 50,000 students (internal and external) through its programs. In 1961 alone, 17,000 employees participated in voluntary study courses.

“In this day and age, education is the one Master Key we can depend on to open the door to future progress, “ Watson said in 1930. “The future of the International Business Machines Corporation, and of every person connected with the Company, depends not upon the amount of time we spend in study; but upon what we learn and upon our ability to transfer our knowledge to newcomers in the business so that they may keep step with the pace of IBM—a pace which is constantly increasing!” In the 80 years since, little has changed.

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Paul Lasewicz, IBM Corporate Archivist

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The January 2013 theme for The Greater IBM Connection is ”leadership”, and The Greater IBM Connection will be sharing various tips, tools, stories, and resources on this topic.

In this week’s issue:

It’s all about leadership

IBM Connect 2013 – You still have time to sign up

What’s new around The Greater IBM Connection

It’s all about leadership

In the last few weeks, you might have noticed that a lot of our stories, social media posts, tips, and resources have focused on one essential idea: leadership.

After all, the start of a new year is a great time for assessing your life and career and for making new commitments. If one of your goals is to become a better leader, then here are some of the recent posts at The Greater IBM Connection around our central theme, for inspiration.

What are YOUR favorite leadership tips or quotations? Share them with your fellow community members in the Comments.

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IBM Connect 2013 – You still have time to sign up

Get Social. Do Business. IBM Connect 2013 is almost here. This large-scale annual event, January 27 – 31 in Orlando, combines the deep technical content that you’ve loved for 20 years with the learning you need to accelerate your move beyond social media to drive real business value with social and collaborative technologies. And there’s still time to register.

You’ll leave IBM Connect with a clear path on how to go beyond social media and embrace social technologies to drive tangible business value and results. You’ll be ready to start using key technologies such as collaboration, portal, Web experiences, content management, analytics, process management, and commerce to go from simply ‘liking’ on social media to truly leading.

How to register:

Register for this event and identify yourself as an IBM alumnus – we’ll let you know about special alumni networking opportunities at and around this event. When registering, you’ll be asked how you heard about the conference. Select “Other”, and then in the open field, be sure to include the code IBMALUM13. That’s all there is to it.

In this brief video, learn more about what social business means to you and your business:

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What’s new around The Greater IBM Connection

The beginning of the year can be especially busy, with catching up on work missed over the holidays, setting goals for the new year, keeping resolutions. In case you missed these, here’s a roundup of some of the most widely read stories on The Greater IBM Connection blog:

Our leadership lesson #3 from Watson was “Our work is one of service.”, and IBMer Theresa Mohan, Senior Regional Counsel is doing just that. After helping her mother clean out her house after Hurricane Sandy hit, Theresa realized that the residents needed help filing for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) due to lack of clarity to the process. So Theresa recruited some fellow attorneys, set up a tent with computers and an Internet connection, and spent the next four weekends with her colleagues helping people get through the process. She continues to work with a network of legal service providers and volunteers in coordinating and tracking assistance for Sandy victims, with the help of software donated by IBM.

Read the full story and more about IBM’s other pro bono legal assistance work below: